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›››Atari
5200 SuperSystem
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 Fall in love with our newly refurbished Atari 7800 ProSystems, boxed with 2-Year Warranty |
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 The
Atari 5200 SuperSystem was born in 1980 as an idea inside the inner catacombs
of Atari's development labs as the "Intellivision killer" which
was to be the next generation in home gaming from Atari. Originally dubbed
the "Atari Video System X," the Atari 5200 was engineered from
groundworks of existing Atari technology taken from their 400 and 800 series
8-Bit home computer lineup. The Atari 5200 SuperSystem as it was to be known
was capable of up to 16 colors on screen at one time, out of a palate of
256 colors, and featured much higher resolution and sound capabilities than
its predecessor, the then five year old Atari 2600 VCS. The Atari 5200 SuperSystem
also introduced basic new concepts which would revolutionize the gaming
industry, such as a pause option, and four player controller ports on the
front of the unit. However many of the Atari 5200's revolutionary concepts
never took root in the gaming industry. Innovations such as controller-based
reset and numerical pads, concealed joystick storage bays within the system
its self, and the "bigger is better" attitude, none of which ever
seemed to quite catch on with the rest of the gaming public. What also didn't
catch on with the gaming public was that the 5200 had been designed as Atari's
answer to the Intellivision, and it did indeed put Mattel's Intellivision
to shame. However the public saw the 5200 more as Atari's competitor to
the CBS ColecoVision, and in reality, it was. The ColecoVision was swift
competition for the 5200, as both systems had their respective advantages
and disadvantages. However the ColecoVision offered an adapter module to
allow 2600 gameplay almost a year before the 5200 had that very same capability,
thus Atari lost many potential 5200 customers to ColecoVision right from
the get-go. All in all, the 5200 was a good effort on Atari's part to stomp
out the Intellivision problem. The Atari 5200 featured state-of-the-art
graphics and options which, with the exception of the ColecoVision, the
competition just could not contend with. However, the Atari 5200 has stood
the test of time, as the 5200 lives on today with one of the larger followings
in the classic gaming community. |
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Quick Links : Atari
5200 SuperSystem |
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Atari 5200 SuperSystem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Questions? Comments? eMail us @ history@atari7800.com |
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